Not ‘ordinary’ women here

Somewhere during the early episodes of House of Cards Season 6, two women, adversaries who have a strange hold over each other, are engaged in a super charged conversation in a dressing room. Two gorgeous, mature women played by the ‘Blonde Goddess’ Robin Wright and the impeccable Diane Lane, in jaw dropping suits doing ample justice to their age defying bodies. “Fifty is Nifty, isn’t it?” smiles the sumptuous Lane, applying a touch of gloss to her lips. It is a nudge and a wink to the exciting inner lives of the powerful women in and around The White House. You can say it is Sex and the City on a political mission, where relationships, marriage and affairs rarely have anything to do with the heart. And women are never caught making small talk over sushi. 

One of the reasons why the female protagonists on HoC appear so fantastic is that they are never shown doing things that that ordinary women do. You will never see them shopping for grocery, waiting to buy coffee at Starbucks, dropping their kids off to school or having a bad hair day. Claire Underwood, who now dominates the disastrous last season, has taken off her killer heels only on a few occasions. Once when she was about to mount her lover and then watch him die of the poison she had fed him. And recently, when she was incited to a dance duel by her frenemy Annette Shepherd. Lane’s character too is shown as someone who is a mix of Cersei from Game of Thrones or someone from Desperate Housewives. Conniving, cold and an influential socialite who is as middle class as Beluga Caviar. 

A perfectly coiffed brunette, Shepherd is always in her power suits and designer hand bags, walking in and out of the corridors of power as though she is walking into a tea party. She teases her male friend, telling him that he has a weakness for powerful women. And powerful women, on this keenly watched show, have no place for laundry lists and meatloaves. 

Until recently, HoC had been driving conversations about the #MeToo campaign (the brilliant Kevin spacey was dropped in the last season after being named as a predator) and making a cultural icon out of Robin Wright. I am a fan too. She is strong, sexy and ambitious. But I also wonder, why is it that the strongest and most powerful women on TV have to appear frozen and photo-finished? Why is it that power, especially in the political and corporate world, comes only to those women who have severed their ties with all that roots them to ordinariness — family, children, food. You will rarely see them enjoying a hearty meal, or enjoying a drink for the sake of it. And sex? Perhaps that is the only thing that makes them human. In show after show, we see mature women in their 40s and 50s, enjoying sexual relationships without any strings attached. Even as the men they go to bed with, struggle to handle the implications of having an affair with a woman in power. No complaints about the high heels though.

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